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Wednesday, 16 October 2013

October's bake of the month

After a short break the ‘bake of the month’ returns to a new mid-week slot.

I came up with the idea of these after eating lemon muffins from a well known supermarket. Those muffins had large pieces of sugar on the top which gave it a lovely sugary crunch.

As I didn’t have any sugar cubes to crumble over the top I improvised by making a syrup using granulated sugar and lemon juice. When the sugar syrup hardened it provided a wonderful sticky lemony texture.

The muffins are best eaten within two days as the sugar top goes a little soft.

Sticky lemon muffins

Ingredients:

5oz/125g caster sugar

9oz/250g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

3oz/75g butter or margarine

2 large eggs

7fl oz/200ml milk

Grated zest of one lemon

Topping:

2oz/50g granulated sugar

Juice of one lemon

Method:

Preheat oven 200ºc/Gas Mk 6. Fan oven 180ºc.

Using a muffin tin line 10 (or 12 if you want to make them smaller) holes with paper cases.

Melt the butter/margarine in a pan or the microwave then leave to cool.

In a bowl add all the dry ingredients and give them a quick stir.

Add the eggs to the milk, beat together, and then add to the melted butter/margarine.

Pour the liquid to the dry ingredients then gently mix until just combined. Don’t be tempted to give it one more stir as over mixing will make the muffins tough.

Divide the batter into the paper cases. You can use a spoon, or better still, an ice-cream scoop.

Bake for 15 – 18 minutes until they are golden brown.

Shortly before the muffins are due to come out of the oven put the granulated sugar and lemon juice into a tea cup and stir. Heat in the microwave for approx 10 seconds until all the sugar has dissolved. You can do this in a small pan over a medium heat if you prefer – I just use the microwave as it saves dirtying a pan....

Once the muffins are cooked, using a large pastry brush, brush the tops of the muffins with the sugar syrup.